An analysis by USA Today says this Congress may be the least productive since the end of World War II. Sixty-one bills became law so far this year, 90 bills last year. So it's not surprising that Congress' approval rating is 10 percent.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

Just 10 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, according to a new Gallup poll. And this next story is not likely to raise that number. According to one analysis, this Congress is on a pace to be the least productive in recent memory.

NPR's Brian Naylor reports.

BRIAN NAYLOR, BYLINE: The analysis was conducted by USA Today. Looking at records of the House Clerk's Office, they found 3,914 bills have been introduced by lawmakers this year, but just 61 of them have become law. In 2011, Congress passed 90 laws. That's much less than the previous record for futility in the mid-1990s.

In contrast, the Congress of 1947 and '48, which President Harry Truman famously ran against as the Do-Nothing Congress, passed over 900 laws; among them, the Marshall Plan that financed the rebuilding of Europe after World War II.

Congressional scholar Norman Ornstein, of the American Enterprise Institute, says this Congress has done nothing nearly as significant.

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: We don't have anything comparable to a Marshall Plan here. And what we have instead is a debt limit debacle, a failure of the supercommittee, an inability to pass a farm bill in the midst of the worst drought since the Great Depression, a failure to tackle in any way a looming fiscal cliff that could send the country back down into a recession, and passage of a bunch of commemorative bills naming post offices.

NAYLOR: A spokesman for the House says Republicans there have approved more than 30 bills that are now languishing in the Democratic-controlled Senate. But many are measures that stood no chance of ever being approved, like repealing the health care law.

Lawmakers will be returning to Washington next month, and they'll most likely reconvene after the election for a lame duck session. And unless they act, steep budget cuts will automatically take effect, while the Bush tax cuts will expire - the so-called fiscal cliff. But it's unclear whether lawmakers, faced with all that, will suddenly find the keys to productivity.

In the case of the farm bill, which hasn't been passed, it just means that the current farm bill will most likely get extended for another year. It's not as if the federal farm program ends. Considering the cuts in food stamps made in the most recent farm bill proposal, Tea Party activists should be angry that it wasn't passed.

Congress needs to do nothing. I mean **** that river, what did it ever do for our country? Let's keep our numerical bill count as low as possible!
Low Mississippi River creates 97-boat jam

(CBS/AP) MEMPHIS, Tenn. - The U.S. Coast Guard says 97 boats and barges are waiting for passage along an 11-mile stretch of the Mississippi River that has been closed because of low water levels.

Coast Guard spokesman Ryan Tippets told The Associated Press on Monday that the stretch of river near Greenville, Miss., has been closed intermittently since Aug. 11, when a vessel ran aground.

Tippets says that the area is currently being surveyed for dredging and that a Coast Guard boat is currently replacing eight navigation markers. He says 40 northbound vessels and 57 southbound vessels are currently stranded and waiting for passage.

Tippets says it is not immediately clear when the river will reopen. He says the stretch of river that has been closed was a possible site for more groundings.

Further upriver near Memphis, Tenn., there have already been multiple groundings due to low water levels, reports CBS News' Karen Brown.

The river is a superhighway for the nation's commodities. Barges transport 60 percent of U.S. corn for export, 45 percent of soybeans, 22 percent of gas, and 20 percent of coal. And one barge can move as much as 70 trucks.

"Everything depends on the river being open," says Derrick Smith, a 22-year veteran with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. "In high stages tow boats are like on a freeway all by themselves. They can maneuver anywhere you want. Today, towboats are basically on a one-way street. Have to pull over and wait for oncoming traffic, wait, slow down."

Smith says the Army Corps can keep the river open.

"We have dredges and we'll go out and dredge the low areas. $160 billion of cargo a year moves up and down this system. You have to keep it going. We do. We have to keep it going," Smith says.

Congress needs to do nothing. I mean **** that river, what did it ever do for our country? Let's keep our numerical bill count as low as possible!
Low Mississippi River creates 97-boat jam

(CBS/AP) MEMPHIS, Tenn. - The U.S. Coast Guard says 97 boats and barges are waiting for passage along an 11-mile stretch of the Mississippi River that has been closed because of low water levels.

Coast Guard spokesman Ryan Tippets told The Associated Press on Monday that the stretch of river near Greenville, Miss., has been closed intermittently since Aug. 11, when a vessel ran aground.

Tippets says that the area is currently being surveyed for dredging and that a Coast Guard boat is currently replacing eight navigation markers. He says 40 northbound vessels and 57 southbound vessels are currently stranded and waiting for passage.

Tippets says it is not immediately clear when the river will reopen. He says the stretch of river that has been closed was a possible site for more groundings.

Further upriver near Memphis, Tenn., there have already been multiple groundings due to low water levels, reports CBS News' Karen Brown.

The river is a superhighway for the nation's commodities. Barges transport 60 percent of U.S. corn for export, 45 percent of soybeans, 22 percent of gas, and 20 percent of coal. And one barge can move as much as 70 trucks.

"Everything depends on the river being open," says Derrick Smith, a 22-year veteran with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. "In high stages tow boats are like on a freeway all by themselves. They can maneuver anywhere you want. Today, towboats are basically on a one-way street. Have to pull over and wait for oncoming traffic, wait, slow down."

Smith says the Army Corps can keep the river open.

"We have dredges and we'll go out and dredge the low areas. $160 billion of cargo a year moves up and down this system. You have to keep it going. We do. We have to keep it going," Smith says.

I think a Congress who passes NO NEW BILLS is great. How many more stupid ****ing laws, programs, remanufactured sub-programs, hidden pork, and other bullshit do we need?

WE HAVE TOO MANY GOD DAMN LAWS AND REGULATIONS AS IT IS!

Make them repeal 2 laws for each 1 they pass

This mentality is exactly why I groan when I hear stuff like "OMG the health care bill is 1000 x pages!" , as if the merit of our government should be on a per-page basis.

Let's draft legislation on cocktail napkins with crayolas.

This country is going down the toilet since we have no capacity to think about anything more than 2 months in the future. Oh OH GOD let's not plan for it. Verboten. I used the word PLAN. That's like CENTRAL PLANNING, i.e., communism, i.e., big "C" COMMUNISM, and i.e., Marxism, i.e, Satanism!

Anything short of sticking our collective thumbs up our a**es and waiting for Armageddon is just not going to be stood for gawl durn it.